Code 672 observational science branch computer networks

In general, networking increases productivity due to the speed of transmission, easy access to remote computers, ability to share files, and increased availability of peripherals. Two different networks within the Observational Science Branch are described in detail

Home Groups with Purpose: Bringing Church Renewal and Strengthening Spiritual Relationships at First Presbyterian Church in Milton, Pennsylvania

The goal of this paper is to develop a strategy for renewal at First Presbyterian Church, Milton, Pennsylvania. The strategy is designed to strengthen spiritual relationships within the church through a home group ministry that facilitates discipleship, fellowship, and ministry within the church. First Presbyterian Church is a two-hundred-year-old mainline church in the northeast. The church has a colorful history of influence in the small town of Milton. Over the last several years, however, decline has threatened the town and the church of mostly aging baby boomers. Church members have limited spiritual friendships and lack opportunities to nurture one another\u27s faith. A recent Natural Church Development survey revealed a lack of passionate spirituality within the church. In order to nurture Christian community, home groups will be introduced to encourage spiritual friendships and discipleship through mutual ministry. This paper contains three major sections. The first section describes the ministry challenges including the state of community relationships in America, and the challenges and opportunities of a small town community and main line church. The second section describes the biblical and theological foundations for relationships within the Christian community. It begins with a review of six books, and then explores biblical images and connectional practices along with a theology of renewal and its practical implications. The final section provides a practical strategy for introducing ongoing home groups at First Presbyterian Church. A plan for leadership development, experimentation, and ongoing evaluation is set forth that is culturally sensitive. The end result should yield a group of leaders within the church who work together to nurture spiritual renewal through home groups. Theological Mentor: Kurt Fredrickson, PhD

Effect of some nitrophenols on the respiration of Myrothecium verrucaria spores.

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The Surface Wave Dynamics Experiment (SWADE)

SWADE was developed to study the dynamics of the wave field development in the open ocean with the following specific objectives: (1) to understand the development of the wave directional spectrum under various conditions; (2) to determine the effect of waves on the air/sea transfers of momentum, heat, and mass; (3) to determine breaking distributions as a function of sea state, wind, and boundary stability; and (4) to provide data and analyses for ERS-1 validation. The experiment is designed for the winter of 1990 to 1991. Four buoys will be deployed for 6 months starting October 1990 and ending March 1991. During that time period, three intensive periods of 2 weeks duration each will be selected for frequent aircraft flights for wave data collection to satisfy scientific studies, as well as ERS-1 validation needs

Spatio-temporal dynamics of Marbled Murrelet hotspots during nesting in nearshore waters along the Washington to California coast

The Marbled Murrelet, Brachyramphus marmoratus, is a federally listed alcid that forages in nearshore waters of the Pacific Northwest, and nests in adjacent older-forest conifers within 40-80 km of shore. To estimate abundance and distribution of murrelets, we conduct at-sea surveys from May to July each year, starting in 2000 and continuing to present. We record numbers of individuals sighted by using distance-based transects and compute annual estimates of density after adjusting for detectability. At-sea transects are subdivided into 5-km segments, and we summarized mean and variance of density at each segment in Puget Sound and along the coast from the Canadian border South to San Francisco Bay. We used a boosted regression tree analysis to investigate the contributions of marine and terrestrial attributes on murrelet abundance in each segment. We observed that terrestrial attributes, especially the amount and pattern of suitable nesting habitat in proximity to each segment, made the strongest contribution, but that marine attributes also helped explain variation in murrelet abundance. Hotspots of murrelet abundance therefore reflect not only suitable marine foraging habitat but proximity of suitable inland nesting habitat

Why growth equals power - and why it shouldn't : constructing visions of China

When discussing the success of China's transition from socialism, there is a tendency to focus on growth figures as an indication of performance. Whilst these figures are indeed impressive, we should not confuse growth with development and assume that the former necessarily automatically generates the latter. Much has been done to reduce poverty in China, but the task is not as complete as some observers would suggest; particularly in terms of access to health, education and welfare, and also in dealing with relative (rather than absolute) depravation and poverty. Visions of China have been constructed that exaggerate Chinese development and power in the global system partly to serve political interests, but partly due to the failure to consider the relationship between growth and development, partly due to the failure to disaggregate who gets what in China, and partly due to the persistence of inter-national conceptions of globalised production, trade, and financial flows

Designing citizen science tools for learning: lessons learnt from the iterative development of nQuire

This paper reports on a 4-year research and development case study about the design of citizen science tools for inquiry learning. It details the process of iterative pedagogy-led design and evaluation of the nQuire toolkit, a set of web-based and mobile tools scaffolding the creation of online citizen science investigations. The design involved an expert review of inquiry learning and citizen science, combined with user experience studies involving more than 200 users. These have informed a concept that we have termed ‘citizen inquiry’, which engages members of the public alongside scientists in setting up, running, managing or contributing to citizen science projects with a main aim of learning about the scientific method through doing science by interaction with others. A design-based research (DBR) methodology was adopted for the iterative design and evaluation of citizen science tools. DBR was focused on the refinement of a central concept, ‘citizen inquiry’, by exploring how it can be instantiated in educational technologies and interventions. The empirical evaluation and iteration of technologies involved three design experiments with end users, user interviews, and insights from pedagogy and user experience experts. Evidence from the iterative development of nQuire led to the production of a set of interaction design principles that aim to guide the development of online, learning-centred, citizen science projects. Eight design guidelines are proposed: users as producers of knowledge, topics before tools, mobile affordances, scaffolds to the process of scientific inquiry, learning by doing as key message, being part of a community as key message, every visit brings a reward, and value users and their time

Experimental Bounds on Masses and Fluxes of Nontopological Solitons

We have re-analyzed the results of various experiments which were not originally interested as searches for the Q-ball or the Fermi-ball. Based on these analyses, in addition to the available data on Q-balls, we obtained rather stringent bounds on flux, mass and typical energy scale of Q-balls as well as Fermi-balls. In case these nontopological solitons are the main component of the dark matter of the Galaxy, we found that only such solitons with very large quantum numbers are allowed. We also estimate how sensitive future experiments will be in the search for Q-balls and Fermi-balls.Comment: 19 pages, 7 eps figures, RevTeX, psfig.st

Why do authoritarian regimes provide public goods? Policy communities, external shocks and ideas in China’s rural social policy making

Recent research on authoritarian regimes argues that they provide public goods in order to prevent rebellion. This essay shows that the ‘threat of rebellion’ alone cannot explain Chinese party-state policies to extend public goods to rural residents in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Drawing on theories of policy making, it argues that China’s one-party regime extended public goods to the rural population under the influence of ideas and policy options generated by policy communities of officials, researchers, international organisations and other actors. The party-state centre adopted and implemented these ideas and policy options when they provided solutions to external shocks and supported economic development goals. Explanations of policies and their outcomes in authoritarian political systems need to include not only ‘dictators’ but also other actors, and the ideas they generate